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| Home : Volume 29 : Spring 2003 : | |
| WCSAR absorbs loss, refocuses and moves forward | |
July 10, 2002: Soybeans growing in the Advanced Astroculture Experiment aboard the International Space Station. Photos courtesy of NASA.
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Expedition Five crew member and flight engineer Peggy Whitson displays the progress of soybeans growing in the Advanced Astroculture (ADVASC) Experiment aboard the International Space Station (ISS) July 10, 2002. WCSAR is preparing to send another ADVASC experiment to the ISS in 2003.
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As NASA searches for answers to the Space Shuttle Columbia tragedy, the Wisconsin Center for Space Automation and Robotics (WCSAR) at the College of Engineering is weighing options for moving forward its mission tied to the International Space Station. "We lost two experiments aboard STS-107, worth about $500,000, which is insignificant on the larger scale, but still a significant loss to our program both fiscally and scientifically," says WCSAR Director Weijia Zhou.
The first experiment aboard Columbia was designed to examine the effects of microgravity on formation of volatile compounds, such as essential oils, produced by different types of aromatic plants. Along with commercial partner International Flavors and Fragrances (IFF), Inc., WCSAR cultivated two plants, a miniature rose (Jerry-O) and an Asian rice flower (Agalia Odoratae), inside Astroculture, an enclosed and environmentally controlled plant growth unit developed by the center. Astroculture provides a precise and autonomous control of temperature, humidity, lighting, nutrient delivery and atmospheric compositions. Within the unit, Wisconsin Center for Space Automation and Robotics's Solid Phase Microextraction (SPME) device collected and preserved volatile compounds emitted during various stages of blossoming. The objective was to examine how the microgravity environment may affect the spectrum and structures of phytochemicals and whether unique compounds could be formed.
The goal of the second experiment, sponsored by Producers' Natural Processing, was to evaluate the effects of the microgravity environment on the efficiency of Agrobacterium tumefaciens — a mediated gene transfer system designed for recalcitrant crops such as soybean, corn, wheat and rice. Similar experiments conducted during STS-95 and STS-101 using soybean seeds suggested that the microgravity environment might enhance transformation efficiency. Zhou says an effective transformation system would have significant impact on the development of genetically engineered crops and high-value recombinant proteins in plants.
Although the space shuttle fleet is grounded, WCSAR is manifested for two flight experiments to be con-ducted on the International Space Station (ISS): one scheduled for July 21, 2003, and another for Jan. 14, 2004. Until the team hears otherwise, it must prepare for those flight dates.
The July experiment, sponsored by IFF, will again study the generation of commercially interesting aromatic plants and the formation of volatile organic compounds in microgravity. Aboard the ISS, the experiment will be conducted using the Advanced Astroculture, which is designed to support the extended duration of research made possible by the space station. Zhou says the advanced system has successfully flown three times on the ISS. It integrates its predecessor's technologies and newly developed control software with capabilities of fault-tolerance, data telemetry and remote commanding to increase system robustness and performance.
With the shuttle schedule in doubt, WCSAR was considering sending its payload to the space station aboard the Russian Progress via flight 11P scheduled for June 16, 2003. Unfortunately, most of the resources on the much smaller orbiter had already been allocated to other payloads.
"What was left was really not sufficient to accommodate Advanced Astroculture's requirements, so now we are pursuing the next shuttle flight, STS-114, planned for July of 2003, or the next Progress flight, 12P, planned for September of 2003, whichever comes first and meets our requirements," Zhou says. "Since this is early in the planning for 12P, we might be able to get what we request; however, Progress does not have many resources available to start with. We just need to work with both NASA and Rosaviakosmos, the Russian Aviation and Space Agency, to sort them out."
As a result of Columbia, future payloads will have to meet enhanced quality assurance and safety review processes, meaning increased costs under existing budgets for payload developers including WCSAR.
"This means our people will have to work harder to keep on schedule and cost," Zhou says. "But the WCSAR team is very much motivated. We've always had a very strong quality ethic. So while this does mean additional work, it does not really change our fundamental approach."
In addition to space flight payload development, WCSAR is working on three biotech-related robotics projects: a micro-arraying robot, bioreactor, and a biomass harvesting robot.
The micro-arraying robot (often referred to as the gene-chip robot) project focuses on technologies for increasing the number of and improving the quality of DNA features on a single chip. The bioreactor project targets technologies for minimizing shear stress in tissue culture suspension and accelerating production of high-value cells and proteins.
With an eye toward facilitating possible Mars exploration, WCSAR and NASA's Johnson Space Center are developing a robotic system as part of a large-scale Bioregenerative Planetary Life Support Systems Test Complex (BIO-Plex). BIO-Plex will be used to gather data in order to design life support systems for a possible habitat on Mars. Zhou says WCSAR's robotic technologies will make possible crop harvesting, environmental monitoring and material transportation in the BIO-Plex, autonomously or remotely.
"NASA is refocusing and assessing its priorities," says Zhou, "and so are we. We are adjusting our program accordingly to realign with NASA's new direction and to keep moving forward."
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Date last modified: Wednesday, 14-May-2003 20:47:00 CDT
Date created: 14-May-2003
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